A PLACE IN THE SUN

     "Can you please tell me, where is cabin no. 8 of Graham Ward?" Dipti worriedly put the question across the netted window to the man in charge of the Enquiry counter of the large public hospital late in the afternoon. Dipti's son Rohit is just at her back looking around and sees a board for visitors, "Visiting Hours - 4-7pm," under an electronic clock that says it is fifteen minutes to three. The rush at visiting hour is yet to start.
     It is a hot summer afternoon in Mumbai, a city at the west of India, by the eastern flank of the sea. The breeze from the Arabian Sea carries a hot but natural whiff of air. The skyscrapers by the side of the sea are showered with the scorching sun at sunset, even at quarter to eight in the evening.
     The man with tired eyes and a pencil at hand is deep into the matrimonial advertisements. Piles of newspaper are stacked on his table under a broken door latch treated as paper weight, and the wooden door of the Enquiry is hung open. He stares at her with a look of utter distaste and fatigue. "Patient's name? Doctor's name?"
     "Patient is Mr. Anupam Mukherjee. I am sorry I don't know the doctor's name."
     After Dipti enters her name in the Visitors' Register as MS. DIPTY RAY + ONE. A series of stereotype security actions follow, ending with the garlanding of laminated cards to carry them anywhere within the hospital.
     The hospital has eight lifts, each with full loads of visitors and those who live their lives by treating them. The bustle can easily be compared with that of a crowded market.
     On the seventh floor, facing the sea, Dipti finds the cabin of her search. The large and clean corridor takes her to that curtained room, where the man of her life has just suffered the rigour of a major heart attack. How is he? Is he in comma? Is he better? Will he survive? Will he ever ask her the same old question - "Dipti! Can we ever have a place in the sun?"
     The nurse who comes out of the cabin asks them to wait until the clock turns to exactly four. Glancing through the window, Dipti sees that the sea that flows on the west flank seems so satisfied to touch and meet the blue sky at all times of the day and night, with any possible color, even the purple of dawn or the golden orange of sunset, and especially in the moonlit night, when the stars display their heavenly jewelry to the world, jewelry never seen upon the Earth. Mumbai's landscape by the side of sea (local people love to call it dariya) reflects the truth of how civilization grows to adapt with the nature, and maybe even vice-versa.
     A deep sigh comes to Dipti, as her mind goes turbulent with times that has passed by. The Arabian Sea seems unaware of her turmoil. She has come by morning flight from Kolkata. It is a sudden visit. Her son Rohit accompanies her. They are staying at a three star hotel named the West End, just opposite the hospital.

     Earlier in the day, after a sleepless night, while she had awaited her close family members at the breakfast table, she had settled with her mind to open that old Pandora's Box. The trauma she had just gone through might not have been visible, but her mind had still been turbulent. To open or not to open that closed chapter of her life had no longer been the issue but rather how to do so. She had found herself unable to cope with the enigma of structuring her thoughts in order to present a candid confession to her husband and sons.
     How would she tell them about the intimacy and ask for their understanding now at this mature age of fifty two? How would she open the lid on the hidden and dormant love story that had never taken shape, but had always remained a shadow in her life? For once, she would need them to bail her out of this hour of crisis, yet she had not been able to find a way to even bring it up to them.
     It began with the telephone call that she received from the Delhi Office of an International News Agency, a call that did not concern news but a news maker. When she took the call the day before yesterday, it was just this - "I am Sonali Sharma, calling from Delhi office of a news agency. Can you please confirm your e-mail? Is this right, ma'am?"
     When she confirmed it, the female voice referred to an e-mail message already sent, and finished the phone call by saying that the message was self-explanatory. However, for Dipti, the E- mail was not only self-explanatory but made her extremely uncomfortable.
     The message said that "Mr. Anupam Mukherjee, our Sr. Business Correspondent stationed at Mumbai, whose highly regarded and published literary work is scheduled to be published within two days, has had a severe heart attack and is in a critical condition under physician's observation for the next 72 hours at Cabin no. 8 of Graham Ward of Bombay Hospital. As per our office records, your name and address with e-mail address etc. were given as his only relative and as nominee. So, you are hereby informed about the incident for your knowledge and action."
     Reading it, she had fallen back on the sofa with a huge question in mind. Oh, heavens! Is Anupam tormented under life & death? When and how? In the world of an evergreen bachelor like Anupam, where there can hardly be any dearth of male and female friends? Why was her name furnished as the only relative whom the office must inform of any official matter related to the incumbent? Tears started streaming down her cheeks. She felt her throat choked.
     Dipti was stunned to understand how much value and respect and importance was shown her by the man, who was not of material relation and not ever dependent on her. The man, who in turn showed defiance to her in those days of reckoning when he moved out of her life at ease and with a smile saying, "Be your papa's good girl and relieve him from immense tension. Let us control our emotions for the emergence and well-being of others."
     Since the day their relationship was broken, he had never contacted her, not even once. Dipti tried. She kept in touch with Anupam by e-mail, and when his letters finally stopped, Dipti could not forget the heartless sacrifice, the immune stepping away with no signs of looking back. She did not quite understand Anupam's behaviour at times. But she understands the emotional binding that both could never ignore, even though it has been kept a secret for years.
     "Anupam, so here is your chance to step out of my life once again," Dipti cries out in silence. The weeping may not be heard, but the glass of resistance shatters. She wipes her tears with the corner of her sari as she decides to be there by the side of Anupam at his cabin in Mumbai. She will leave by the next flight.
     What will Niranjan think, her husband, who till today has followed her lead for his nature is of submission and sustenance; Niranjan, who has never put himself in a dictating position but always prefers to see himself at the receiving end of instructions. A character of the most servile type, who finds his supremacy in identifying himself as the winner of the race who was rewarded by the princess and the kingdom, when better contestants did fail.
     But, how can he welcome this? And her two beloved sons, although characteristically opposite to each other, might they be shocked at hearing this unbelievable piece of news. Dipti shudders to imagine the quantum of surprise they may face. She is afraid to imagine the unpleasant and gloomy situation that may occur.
     Her mind undergoes a sequence of emotional tidal waves that lift her to the top for a panoramic view, where she dares to ask herself. What is left for her to be a self-content woman? A woman of substance? What is it that she does not yet have that a woman always craves? For all that she possesses, she is not dependent on anyone, but they all are dependent on her.
     Despite all her possessions, why does she feels so vacant and defunct? Why she can not bear the load of her memories in silence the way she has borne them so far? Is it because this may be the last time she will see Anupam upon this Earth?
     Her family consists of Niranjan Pakrashi, her humble husband from a family of oil mill owner at the local market; Suhrit and Rohit, her two grown up sons; and Monoroma, her ailing mother. And then there is her well made household, with every single electronic gadget in house and best available perfume in the market and six cars of mid and high segment and a palace to live in. Her empire is not limited by this, but is even more. The three large chain shops in Kolkata that she inherited, with a solid staff strength of thirty to thirty five. To them, she is a feeder mother. So much of wealth and manpower in a line of display are indicators of what she possesses, apart from the many cheque books in her handy bag, together with the Fixed Deposit Receipts that can hardly measure even a part of loads of money after extravagant spending.
     Her father, an eminent businessman, had a penchant for a combination of culture and wealth. During his lifetime, he often chaired a cultural function, not for the reason of highest donation but for a sensible patronage of cultural programs that he was terribly fond of. Occasional visits to Santiniketan at Bolpur, accompanied by his daughter had been quite explicit.
     This is the philosophy that helps her to lead this family empire that had not been built in a day. The more he was fond of classical music, the more he was deep in doing business. Pouring of gramophone records of folk songs into the custody of her father, better known as Bishubabu, had led equally to downpours of silver coins.
     However, the combination was too heavy for a person of worries to pass the test of time in the changing scenario of business, and he soon had ill health, succumbing to the pressure of the future of his business, his family, or both.
     Because of all this, he suffered frequent bouts of heart attacks. At his death bed, the decision to pass on the empire was a declaration. The preparation had begun long before - a well structured one based on an acceptable equation to ensure that his business empire and the family's future rested in safe hands. Who could be the right choice for this other than Dipti, his only daughter?
     She understood one thing for sure. That she would be the future empress of the empire to be left by her father. This was not the issue. But she was still haunted by the question as to how to manage it. Perhaps, she was still too weak, too good for nothing as far as managing business was concerned. Why her? Why not the one already on the job as his father's business manager who had been taught various intricacies of business.
     However, she had grown up with the observation as to how their welfare and good upbringing were possible by the input of a selfless warrior in those trying times. The days in the beginning of the journey were difficult, with the many ups and downs, the sudden raids from Sales Tax and other controlling authorities, and the sleepless nights to prepare submissions for court cases, but by then, Dipti was ready.
     Obeying father's resolution as papa's good girl, at her young age, was a decent and right behavior shown, which was unanimously appreciated by all her known ones - except by one, herself!
     Her dearest friend Sriparna, who had all the knowledge of this episode, could tease her with one sentence of three words "Papa's good girl" Dipti used to call herself this in silence also - but sarcastically and abusively.

     "Excuse me, I am Mala Bhatnagar, Executive Editor, Rainbow Publishing! Are you the relative of Anupamji?" A change of fresh fragrance, face glowing in intellect, eyes covered with contact lens and surprise - all these roll into one - Mala B., well known to the Press. "Meet, Mr. Sahil Shiekh, Secretary of All India Publishing Award Committee." As Dipti is placing a tired smile on her face, Mala keeps on telling her, "Anupam is a scholar in the world of journalism - a highly regarded personality."
     "His first ever published novel is scheduled to be put before the public and readers the day after tomorrow. But his sudden bout of cardiac attack two days back has made us postpone the time-schedule for the time being. The doctor's view is that a minimum rest of three weeks is compulsory, if he is to survive from such a serious attack."
     Mala stops speaking, as the nurse puts her head from behind the curtain and says, "The visitors may please come into the cabin now."
     Trembling in fear and accompanied by the others, Dipti goes in. She sees the seaside window open. The room is bright with the light, long before the setting sun. She sees the man pinned down on the bed under a pool of apparatus.
     As they all gather near the bed, she realizes that his face has a lot to hide within. The man who means a lot in her life with his sense and sensibility can now count days as a senseless and colourless creature on the white bedsheet in the white coloured room.
     As she puts the bouquet on the table by his side, her eyes rest on an English novel, one written by Anupam. She can not resist picking up the book, called A Place in the Sun. It is a love story, where the main characters never meet. But the story never ends, as love never does. She skips the first two pages to reach for the page where Anupam has dedicated the book in a few words - "To Dipti - the ray of love, hope and life that remains ever within." The man in the comma and now so silent upon the bed wrote this.
     "Anupam, my tears have cascading effect at last on your battle to get us a place in the sun?" murmurs Dipti as her eyes glow in wonder.
     She can not realise whether the hot sea breeze sweeps away the divine sun ray, or it is just the reverse....

Sri Partha Pratim Majumder

You may e-mail the author at pratim_in@yahoo.com